Trial begins in international custody case

A New Hampshire woman said she fled Turkey with her two daughters in 2007 because she believed her husband was sexually abusing them. The mother is the first witness in an international custody battle over the girls — now ages 9 and 10 — being waged in US District Court in Concord. The father alleges that his former wife defied a Turkish family court’s 2006 decision granting him custody and kept the children concealed from him, first in Europe and, since 2010, in New Hampshire. She testified that she enrolled the girls in school using their real names and that she obtained a work permit in Andorra using her real name.